Wednesday March 2, 2022, Nathalie Marquay and the family of Jean-Pierre Pernaut announced his death. The journalist died at the age of 71 after battling lung cancer. He was the face of TF1’s 13H and a true lover of the regions of France. It is therefore an audiovisual monument that has disappeared, to the great regret of his colleagues. As soon as the announcement of his disappearance, the tributes were not long in coming, like those of his replacement Marie-Sophie Lacarrau, Claire Chazal or even Jean-Luc Reichmann who appeared in tears on the air.
Contacted by France Blue, it was Michel Drucker who also took the floor to salute the memory of Jean-Pierre Pernaut. The two had a lot in common, starting with their impressive on-air longevity. “I think of Jean-Pierre, we met from time to time and each time, he said to me: ‘Welcome to the club of non-prompters.’ We belong to this generation that has never used this prosthesis. It’s the Léon Zitrone school, the school of memory“, he recalled with emotion. But according to him, JPP was by far the best in remaining 33 years at the helm of the same program. “VSIt’s not just a record in France, it’s a record all over the world“, underlined Michel Drucker.
Although evolving on competing channels, the two animators have always been very respectful of the work of one and the other. And even rather admiring! The face of Can’t wait for Sunday on France 2 also admits to having been a fan of the father of four children, like a large majority of French people. “Me too, at lunchtime, I would come home and watch Pernaut, which was not the case for all the Parisian sores who discovered it much later while France had known him for a long time“, he said, thus echoing the rant of Patrick Poivre d’Arvor around those who criticized Jean-Pierre Pernaut.
Thus Michel Drucker is certain: the whole nation is today in mourning. “I think of his family and friends and he had a lot of them. He has 60 million French people as friends“.